Type Tutorial

The Art of Hand Lettering

Creative: Chris Anderson
Skills: Art Direction, Illustration, Tutorial, Typography, Photography

“There is a growing interest in the (lost) art of hand-lettering. At a time, when many young people have spent their entire lives behind a computer and Photoshop has become a verb, there is a renewed appreciation for the unique look that hand lettering produces.

Coming out of the grunge, graffiti and David Carson era through the ’90s, there has been a major resurgence of interest in typography. We’ve seen a number of designers and artists make their careers out of designing type or custom lettering, and it has become common to list typography among our skills and disciplines.”

You will find a few of my own hand lettering ideas below. Enjoy!

Example (1):

Step One: Draw your letters/words on paper or poster board with a pencil or marker. Experiment with different versions until you are satisfied with the look.

Step Two: Take a photograph with your camera or smartphone and add a vintage effect or filter in Photoshop.

Step Three: Remove your letter sketch from it’s background in Photoshop and apply it to your photo. Add a blur (and your branding), then take the opacity of the background down to make your sketch really stand out.

Example (2):

Step One: Once again, draw your letters on a piece of paper or poster board with a pencil or marker. Experiment with different versions until you are satisfied with the look.

Step Two: This time I chose a black and white stock photograph for the background and a grunge texture as an overlay.

Step Three: Same as previous example, remove your letters from the original background and apply it to your photograph. Next, add a preferred texture, use a black mask (set your opacity to 60%) and use some interesting lighting effects. I have also added some traditional typography at the bottom (… in yourself) in Photoshop.